Millions brace for hurricane’s arrival
CHICAGO — Millions of people in the US Gulf Coast states of Texas and Louisiana have been bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Harvey as it intensified to category 2 with winds whipping up to 160 kilometers per hour.
The US National Hurricane Center warned that Harvey was “rapidly intensifying” and creating a potential for “lifethreatening and devastating” floods as it roared toward an area that processes some seven million barrels of oil a day.
The storm’s center was due to make landfall sometime early on Saturday, with strong winds preceding it on Friday.
Harvey was bearing northwest at 16 km/h as of midnight, but the NHC said the category 1 hurricane could hit land as a much more powerful category 3, with winds of up to 210 km/h.
If forecasts hold, Harvey would be the strongest hurricane to hit the US mainland in 12 years.
“For anyone who has not already evacuated, please hurry to do so,” the city of Portland, Texas, declared on its website in capital letters.
The storm was menacing one-third of the US refining capacity, forcing several energy companies to take precautions and evacuate personnel from oil and gas platforms in the heart of the US “Refinery Row”.
One oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico was evacuated on Thursday, as well as 39 manned oil and natural gas production platforms, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Those evacuations represented an estimated 9.5 percent of oil production and 14.7 percent of natural gas production in the Gulf, the Bureau said.
The storm was expected to dump as much as 89 centimeters of rain in some parts of Texas. Dangerous storm surges were also forecast to reach between 1.8 and 3.7 meters above ground level in the worst-hit regions.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued disaster declarations in 30 counties, saying the preemptive move would allow the state “to quickly deploy resources for the emergency response effort”.
Officials in Houston, the biggest city in the path of the storm, said they did not anticipate issuing evacuation orders, but expected heavy rainfall to last up to five days. City schools canceled classes through Monday.
“Houston will see close to 20 inches (50 cm) of rainfall,” officials said in a statement. “This is likely to cause dangerous flash flooding, and will cause area flooding throughout the entire Houston region.”
Corpus Christi — a major oil refining center where the hurricane was projected to make landfall Saturday morning — issued voluntary evacuation orders. The nearby coastal hamlets of Port Arkansas and Arkansas Pass both ordered mandatory evacuations.
A number of other municipalities in Texas also ordered evacuations.